The rich elite do not live in the real world. They live in their bubbles, with selected people, selected fashions, selected locations, selected company, and everything else. Nothing horrifies them more than the idea of spending time in reality. They must maintain their fantasy that they are the greatest, most prestigious people in the world. They must feed their narcissistic desires for validation. For them, everything serves this purpose. It’s all about them. It’s not about the millions of people who live in poverty, nor the exploited, working-class employees. They are the center, the main characters, the origin around which the whole world revolves. Despite only engaging with it on a monetary basis (not a personal one), they consider themselves its masters.
To defeat the super rich, it’s necessary to burst their bubble, to bring them out of their isolated, gated fantasy land and into the real world. It’s only when they are out of their established fantasy that they can be subject to reality. Right now, the elite fantasy is supported by governments and people alike, either explicitly (deliberate support via bailouts or publicly defending their actions) or implicitly (failure to do anything about it). Why should the world suffer to permit a few people their lives of status and luxury, especially when they offer the world nothing in return? Because that’s the way it’s always been done? Because the law gives them the right to it all? But reason tells us that there is a difference between what’s traditional and what’s right, and between what’s lawful and what’s right.
Why do people cling on to tradition? Because it gives them a definite direction. It grounds them in the familiar, where there is a set protocol for what they should do. And it absolves them of having to make their own path. If anything is rooted in tradition, it’s extremely difficult to overturn, even if it might be harmful. As the saying goes, you cannot reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into. If you want to defeat tradition, you have to attack its basis, its foundation.
Friedrich Nietzsche said we need a “revaluation of all values” – in other words, an objective examination that ignores tradition. The present doesn’t just follow the past – it’s built on the past, and in order to rebuild the world, a demolishing must take place, both on a personal and global level.
Every traditional value that props up the super rich must be ejected from society. Values aren’t merely personal; they play a functional role in the broader society in which they exist. Unacceptable values should not be accepted.
Robert Nozick introduced the concept of the experience machine. If you were offered the opportunity to plug into a machine that could simulate pleasurable experiences for you on demand that were indistinguishable from reality, would you take it? People like to believe that they wouldn’t, that they’d prefer a sober reality fraught with pain and obstacles to a completely imaginary reality with no pain. But why, then, do people cling so hard to the idea of heaven? And why do people become drug addicts to the point where coming sober is like being plunged into a world of hurt? Clearly, these people value pleasurable experience more than reality. They are entranced by unfettered, unsullied pleasure.
The super rich have built their own “experience bubble”, where they are immune to consequences and they can choose to have any pleasure they want. Except, they’re not playing with a simulation – they’re playing with the real world and real people. Is there anything more monstrous than making countless people suffer so that you can enrich yourself and satisfy your narcissistic, hedonistic bullshit?
It’s insane to carry on this way. No one in any position of authority intends to do anything about it. It’s up to us.